He Was Different
by BethBobby
Summary: Gendry was different, he looked after her when she fell.


He Was Different

BethBobby

….

AN: Another one-shot – jesus, I literally have never wrote so many fics in such a short period of time! It's ridiculous. Anyway, another Arya/Gendry one-shot. For the person who asked me about a multi-chapter one, I will eventually do one, but I have four 3000 word essays due in the next few weeks, so until the end of May, I don't have time. It's unfair to make people wait weeks between updates, so I'm waiting until my summer holidays start. Also, for anyone who follows me for Hawaii Five-0 and Vampire Diaries fics, I have a fic for each of the fandoms that are half finished, so they'll also be posted in summer :)

Set on the way to Harrenhal.

….

The mud came midway up Gendry's calves, it was almost impossible to walk through it; even the horses were struggling, stumbling and then thrashing around in an attempt to stay on their feet.

No one was struggling more than Arya.

Her height meant that the mud reached her knees and she was walking as though her feet had been nailed to the floor. But their captors were relentless, one even pushing her face down into the mud.

Anger had burned through Gendry's veins, she was just a kid! They could see how much she was struggling, but they just didn't care.

Gendry dropped behind the group, waiting for her to catch up to him, worried that the guards would hurt her for not keeping up with them.

'How you doing back here?' he asked.

He saw the line on her forehead tighten as she gritted her teeth, 'I'm fine.'

'You're not fine. You're cold, covered in mud thanks to that cunt over there and the mud is nearly higher than you are. Just let me help you, even just for five minutes.' He could see her laboured breathing, she was so tired, this was hard on the men, but even harder on her.

She didn't have the same strength they did. Although she had more fight in her than all of them put together, fight didn't outweigh physical strength and her tiny body was just about done.

They'd been walking all day with only one stop for water. Gendry knew Arya had been sick last night, throwing up the little food they had been given. He didn't know how she was still on her feet. There wasn't a scrap of meat left on her. He had jabbed her playfully in the side the previous morning and had been shocked to find that her ribs stuck out of her skin.

'I'll be fine, it's nearly dark, they can't make us go on for much longer.' Arya muttered, her eyes glued to the floor as she wrenched her feet out of the mud and took another step.

'Who knows how long they'll make us carry on for, I for one am hoping he falls off his horse and breaks his neck.' Gendry muttered angrily, glaring at the guard that had pushed Arya.

Arya sighed slightly in annoyance as she stumbled again, hating to look weak. Weakness meant death. She had seen that when they killed the boy with the broken leg. Weakness wasn't tolerated; you would be killed before you slowed them down.

Gendry gripped the top of her arm but as he did so, her foot slipped again, sending her sprawling onto the floor, one of her boots knocking his right foot and taking him down with her.

He swore as he fell but he heard Arya yelp as she hit the floor.

'Are you okay?' he asked, jumping up, covered from head to toe in thick mud.

'My hand.' He heard her say, in a very un-Arya-like whimper.

'Let me look.' He said, holding out his hand to her, but she cradled her hand against her chest, wincing in pain, her face screwed up as though she was trying not to cry.

Vaguely he registered one of the guards shouting at the other prisoners to make camp.

'Come on, let's go and see if they found somewhere dry to sleep and I'll take a look at your hand there.'

Arya nodded, not moving.

Gendry looked at her before standing up and putting his hands under her shoulders, hauling her to her feet as though she were a small child. She weighed no more than one, he noted sadly.

….

They caught up with the others quickly; glad to see that they had managed to find a spot a little higher up from the track where the ground was a little dryer, rocky, but dryer.

One of the men was attempting to light a fire and failing due to the lack of dry wood anywhere near them. Bread for their meal it would be then, if there was any left.

'Sit.' Gendry told Arya, as he sat down in the least rock covered part of the spot they were in.

She did as he told her, still clutching her hand against her, eyes cloudy with tears he knew she wouldn't let fall.

'It hurts,' she admitted, slowly extending her arm out to him.

He knew straight away why she was almost crying. Two of her fingers stuck out at an odd angle.

'Ouch,' he let out a small whistle, 'looks like you dislocated them, you land on them as you fell?'

She nodded 'can you fix it?'

Gendry was surprised at her trust in him.

'I think so,' he told her, 'but it'll hurt.'

'Just do it.'

Gendry called to Hot Pie to come over and help him, the large boy coming over slowly, worried that he would miss out on his share of the meal.

'Arry, you lie back, Hot Pie, hold Arry down.' Gendry said, motioning to Arya.

'Why?' the large boy asked in confusion.

'He's dislocated his fingers, I'm going to put them back in, just hold him down.' Gendry told him, annoyance flashing across his face for a moment.

'Okay.' Hot Pie said, sitting down and leaning across Arya's chest.

'Ready?' Gendry asked getting hold of her first finger and waiting for Arya to nod before starting to count, 'three, two..'

Pop.

Arya cried out, unable to hold it in, trying to pull her hand away from Gendry as pain shot up her arm.

'What's going on over there?' one of the guards called, starting to stand up.

'The lad tripped and dislocated a finger, I'm fixing it,' Gendry called, giving a firm tug and popping Arya's other finger back into place.

She cried out again, but this time Gendry released her hand when she tried to snatch it away from him.

'Thanks Hot Pie,' Gendry said, watching the fat boy walk away before turning back to Arya, 'all done. I'm sorry.'

She looked down at her already bruising hand before looking back up at him 'it's not your fault. They would have probably just cut them off.'

Gendry smiled slightly at her, reaching out to rub her arm. Arya leaned into his touch, rubbing her face again, weariness and pain mixing together and making her want to cry even more.

'I'm sorry you got covered in mud,' she muttered.

'I was already covered in mud,' Gendry pointed out gently, squeezing the top of her arm.

Arya took a deep, shuddering breath to compose herself.

'Better?' Gendry asked.

'A little,' Arya admitted, 'this just throbs.'

'It will for a while. I did that once, hurt like hell.' Gendry looked at her little hand.

She was so tiny.

That reminded him.

'Hey, come on, we better go and get food before they eat it all.' Gendry said, quickly standing up and holding out his hand to pull Arya to her feet.

Arya took his hand, surprised at how much she was willing to trust him. Yoren had told her that all their companions would hand her over to the king, and half of them would rape her first.

So why did she trust Gendry? Maybe it was because they were in the same situation, both running from the king.

But as Gendry looked at her and smiled she realised that that wasn't it.

It was because Gendry was different.

….

AN: Ahh I really didn't think that this would be out tonight, I wanted to do something that linked into the 2x04 episode, but every time I started them, it didn't come out right. So this is what appeared instead. Not sure I'm 100% happy with this either, not my best work, but I thoroughly enjoyed writing it, so I've posted it anyway.

Thanks you to everyone who reviewed/author alerted the last two one-shots I've done; I read and appreciate every single one!

**Review/Comment? **


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